Simple voice recording - buzz

[UKJess]

I am trying to record a book I am reading for a partially-sighted friend. Knowing no better I purchased a headset/microphone and tried to read, only to find that there is a continuous buzz or hum whether I am speaking or not. Noise removal leaves me speaking like Donald Duck no matter how I tweak it - is there and I've tried to follow the tutorials on noise reduction but, for example, Plot Spectrum doesn't give me any noticeable peaks - although the entire plot is basically wedge shaped, with the thick end of the wedge on the right.

I am not looking to become an expert, I just need to do this for my friend and send her something that won't drive her stark raving bonkers within seconds.

TIA

J

[Irish]

We need to eliminate the hum before it gets into the recording, rather than try to take it out afterwards, but so far we've very little to go on.

Can you give us a bit more information about your set-up? - make and model of the computer and the microphone, and where the microphone is plugged in, would be a good start. Too much information is better than not enough.

PO'L

[UKJess]

Ta, I have Audacity 1.2.6. I am running Vista Home Premium on a Dell Inspiron - it's a bit elderly now but has 2GB and plenty of hard drive space. I have a set of fairly cheap Logitech headphones, microphone which is connected by USB because the minijacks stopped working about a year ago. There is no hum when watching DVDs or listening to internet radio over the speakers, or over the headphones. The soundcard is er.....no idea, can't find it on Device Manager and don't know where else to look - er SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC 6.10.0.5290

anything else I can find out?

J

[kozikowski]

Nobody's surprised about Audacity 1.2 noise reduction not working. It didn't work when it was new.

You can't see it, but we're giving each other quizzical looks across the time zones. You are set up for one of the jobs Windows was intended to do. Further, USB microphones tend to be free of all the hum and buzz problems that plague analog microphones.

You did say two things that got my attention. The analog connections stopped working a while ago. They didn't go away, they just stopped doing what you wanted them to do. We shouldn't associate your condition with more information than we actually have.

You said you did a signal analysis and the lumps and bumps all piled up toward the right. That's most unusual. This sort of thing is more normal...

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/piano_G1.jpg

Do you still get the hum if you disconnect your headset and set Audacity to recording?

Do you do a lot of recording from the internet?

Koz

[UKJess]

thanks for the help - I have only once recorded off the internet and, sorry to be stupid but if I unplug the headphones and built-in microphone - how do I then record?

J

[kozikowski]

We work in strange ways. If you disconnect your headset, launch Audacity, press record, and still get hum, it's not the headset.

Koz

[UKJess]

ah, then no - if I unplug the headphones - there's nothing showing on the recording

J

[Irish]

It looks as though the headset is at fault but, just to be sure, try it in all the USB ports and see is there any difference.

PO'L

[UKJess]

Except this is the second set of headphones which has produced this and it's the same no matter which port I use

J